It is
reassuring to see that there are still some brave scientists around willing to
investigate the less conventional findings rather than simply placing them in
the ‘too hard to solve’ basket – the Natural History Museum in London has made an announcement about a specialised
department which has been likened to the well-known X-Files programme.
The
unit’s Identification and Advisory Service will be responsible for investigating
a wide-range of unexplained phenomena, and so far they have been contending
with so-called ‘space slime’, and a host of bizarre items discovered by the
British public including bones resembling a dragon skull, round objects
believed to be meteorite fragments, and a skull with long tusks believed to
have belonged to the ice-age sabre tooth tiger.
The
research team takes a scientific approach to all the submissions and so-far
they have been able to solve many of the mysteries – the ‘dragon skull’ is the
pelvis of a sea bird, the ‘sabre-tooth tiger’ is the skull of a Chinese Water
Deer, and the meteorite fragment was in fact a solidified ball of aluminium
foil.
However,
one of the unexplained phenomena still has the team baffled – the mysterious slime
discovered in a nature reserve in Somerset. The slime appeared at the same time
as a meteor crashed to earth in Chelyabinsk, Russia, which has led many to
believe that the strange substance has come from space.
An
amateur photographer claimed he had captured a mysterious object whizzing
through the sky above the park on camera. The object appeared to be a meteor,
although this was not confirmed by astronomers.
The
London museum's Angela Marmont Centre (AMC) for UK Biodiversity, which houses
the Identification and Advisory Service, was tasked with investigating the
mysterious slime, with the aim of establishing whether it had fallen from
space, or if its origins were rather more terrestrial. Laboratory tests
have so far failed to find just what it could be - and where it had come from.
Scientists
from the unit extracted DNA from the jelly and tried to match it against that
of birds and frogs, without success. This rules out the theory that the slime
is unfertilized frog spawn.
“The
slime is still a genuine mystery,” said Chesca Rogers from the AMC.
“There are stories in folklore that link it with meteor sightings. Some people
think it might be unfertilised frog spawn, others think it is a fungus, or a
slime mould or that it is plant related. None of the tests we have done so far
have told us anything conclusive.”
Every
year the museum receives around 10,000 inquiries from the public, who are
encouraged to bring their finds to the Museum for examination.
